You are here: Home / Pension Reform.

Pension Reform.

Opinion Headlines

  1. Pension funding. LTE. “Our Pension Fund’s Risk Level Is Quite Responsible” [San Diego] 8-25-14
  2. Pension Reform. “The Trial of a Democratic Pension Reformer.” By Allysia Finley. 9-5-14
  3. Pensions. “A Calpers Comeuppance.” [A judge says the giant public pension isn’t above bankruptcy law.] 10-7-14
  4. Pensions. LTE. “There Really Is a Huge Retirement Crisis Developing.” 10-7-14
  5. Pensions “Silicon Valley’s Reform Breakthrough.” [A pension reformer wins in San Jose against the union machine.] 11-11-14
  6. Illinois’s Pension Absurdity. [A judge rules that all benefits are forever, no matter the public cost.] 11-29-14
  7. Pensions. “A Federal Guarantee Is Sure to Go Broke.” By Alex J. Pollock. [Initially a union idea, the 40-year-old Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has a mission impossible.] 12-1-2014
  8. Pensions. “Public Pensions Need Gamblers Anonymous.” By Andrew G. Biggs. [Retirement funds for Illinois and California hold 75% risky investments. The Texas teachers’ plan: 81%.] 12-3-14
  9. Pensions. LTE. “Illinois Pensions: Financial Reality and Constitutions.” 12-8-14
  10. Pensions. LTE. “Pensions’ Return Assumptions Must Be More Realistic.” 12-9-14
  11. Pensions. “Washington’s Pension Non-Bailout.” [A fix for multi-employer plans that doesn’t hit taxpayers. Really.] 12-12-14.
  12. Pensions. LTE. “Pension Plans Do Well When They Are Properly Funded.” 12-16-14
  13. Pensions. LTE. “Public Pension Funding Problems.”   “Liberals Rediscover the States.” [Big money donors on the left set up their own version of ALEC.] 12-24-14
  14. Pensions. “The Pension Sink Is Gulping Billions in Tax Raises.”  By Steve Malanga. [Remember that ‘temporary’  tax hike for California Schools? Most is now going to public worker retirements.] 1-13-15
  15. Pensions. “The Other Debt Bomb in Public-Employee Benefits.” By Robert Pozen. [Underfunded health-care obligations may be close to $1 trillion. Many cities and states are in for big trouble.] 1-16-15
  16. Pensions. LTE. “Pensions Are a Mathematical Issue.” 1-27-15
  17. Pensions. “Calpers Gets Schooled.” [A judge says public pensions can be impaired as part of bankruptcy. 2-9-15
  18. Pensions. “Debt-Saddled Municipal Budgets Get a Lifeline.” By Robert C. Pozen et.al. [A unanimous Supreme Court held that health benefits for retired workers cqn be renegotiated or reduced.] 3-2-15
  19. Pensions. LTE. “Pension Reform and Societal Cost.” 4-2-15
  20. Pensions. LTE. “Biting the Bullet on Public Pensions.” 4-8-15
  21. Pensions. LTE “The 13th Check Is a Prudent Reform.”  4-18-15
  22. Pensions. “Public-Pension Potholes in Wine Country Paradise.” By Stephen Eide. [Sonoma voters are being asked to raise taxes to fix roads – while public workers savor sweet retirement deals.] 5-30-15
  23. Pensions. “The Public Pension Funding Trap.” By Andrew G. Biggs. [To make up for shortfalls in contributions, plans take extraordinary risks to earn higher returns.] 6-1-15
  24. Pensions. California. “Calpers vs. Voters.” [The union-run pension fund tries to stop a reform referendum.] 8-13-15
  25. Pensions. LTE. “Calpers Is Prudent to be Concerned.” 8-19-15
  26. Pensions. LTE. “Public Pension Risk Mainly on the Taxpayers.” 9-14-15
  27. Pensions. “Democrats Against ObamaSave.” [Bipartisan opposition builds to Labor’s new fiduciary rule.] 10-10-12
  28. Pensions. LTE. “Pensions and Learning from Past Mistakes.” 10-13-15
  29. Pensions. “Forcing Green Politics on Pension Funds.” By Andy Kessler. 11-19-15
  30. Pensions. “Obama’s New Public Pension Option.” [Tom Perez’s Labor Department rewrites Erisa for liberal states.] 11-28-15
  31. Pensions. LTE. “Public-Private Sector Retirement Solutions.” 12-5-15
  32. Pensions. LTE. “Secure Choice Plans Will Help Sate Workers.” 12-15-15
  33. Pensions. “Fees That Sickly Public-Pension Funds Can’t Afford.” [Illinois paid hedge-fund managers $180 million over three years, with underwhelming results.] 5-14-16
  34. Pensions. “Treasury’s Teamsters Bailout Ploy.” [By rejecting a pension rescue plan, Obama sets taxpayers up for a hit.] 5-16-16
  35. Pensions. LTE. Treasury Is Right to Block Subpar Settlement.” 5-20-16 [See Teamsters bailout ploy.]
  36. Pensions. “The High Cost of Ultralow Interest Rates.” By Paul H. Kupiec. 5-23-16
  37. Pensions. LTE. “Unions Chose Not To Insist on Pension Funding.”   5-25-16
  38. Pensions. LTE.  “I Believe in Defined-Benefit Pension Plans.”  7-5-16
  39. Pensions. ”How to Revive Company Pension Plans.” By Julio A. Portalatin. 7-6-16
  40. Pensions. “How to Save Public Pensions, No Federal Bailout Needed.  By Ed Bachrach.  [It isn’t unprecedented for the feds to spur local pension reform.  Kennedy and Reagan both did.]  7-18-16
  41. Pensions. LTE.  “It’s time for Delta, Not the PBGC, to Pay Its Pensioners.”  7-21-16
  42. Pensions. LTE.  “State Pensions Aren’t Washington’s Problem.”  7-26-16
  43. Pensions. LTE.  “The Defined-Benefit Public Pension Provokes a Backlash.”  8-9-16
  44. Pensions. LTE.  “Freeze Public Pensions, Give Workers 401(k)s.  8-18-16
  45. Pensions.   LTE. “California IRAs: Private-Worker Pensions?” 8-26-16
  46. Pensions. “Covering Up the Pension Crisis.” By Steve Malanga. [States and actuaries are trying to stifle debate about the growing shortfall in fund assets.] 8-26-16
  47. Pensions. LTE. “Speculative Contracts Put Retirees’ Pensions at Risk.” 8-27-16
  48. Pensions. LTE. “Don’t Blame Actuarie for Public Pension Mess.” 9-9-16
  49. Pensions. “Mining Taxpayers’ Pockets for Private-Pension Relief. By Diana Furchtgott-Ruth. [If Congress bails out the United Mine Workers, others will come forward with their own claims.] 9-9-16
  50. Pensions. “Your 401(k) Doesn’t Need a Federal Babysitter.”  By Anthony Scaramucci.  [The Labor Department’s fiduciary rule makes sound retirement advice harder and more expensive to get.]  11-2-16
  51. Pensions. “Another Government Pension Scandal.”  [Public retirement funds are a giant opportunity for corruption.]  12-23-16
  52. Pensions. LTE.  “401(k)s Were Just One Part of the Solution.” 1-19-17
  53. Pensions. “Labor Department Mutiny. [Obama’s holdovers refuse to follow Trump’s directive.] 4-13-17
  54. Pensions.  Illinois. “Pennsylvania’s Lesson for Illinois.”  [A bipartisan reform begins to address the state’s funding abyss.]  6-14-17
  55. Pensions.  Illinois. LTE.  “Two-State Solution to Pension Underfunding?”  6-20-17
  56. Pensions. “Britain’s Monetary ‘Stimulus’ Has Fed the Pension Crisis.” By Joseph C. Sternberg. [Ultralow interest rates widen the gap between assets and liabilities as expected returns plummet.] 3-30-18
  57. Pensions.  “Why Your Pension Is Doomed.” [A new study shows that benefits are rising faster than GDP in most states 7-20-18
  58. Pensions.  LTE.  “Who’s to Blame for Underfunded Pensions?”  7-31-18
  59. Pensions.  “The Stealth Pension Mortgage on Your House.”  By Rob Arnott and Lisa Meulbroek.  [Real estate is the ultimate collateral for unfunded state public employee retirement obligations.]  8-6-18
  60. Pensions.  “Chicago Has Another Bond for You.”  [The city may try to paper over its pension woes with new debt.]  8-18-18
  61. Pensions.  “California Public Employees Vote Against Pension-Fund Activism.”  By Paul S. Atkins.  10-19-18
  62. Pensions.  “Why Not ‘Trump Retirement Accounts?”  by Tom Giovanetti.  [If you want to cut middle-class taxes, go where the money is:  Social Security.]  11-1-18
  63. Pensions.  “Make It Easier for Companies to Offer 401(k)s” by Robert C. Puzen.   [Congress should let small employers band together to give employees access to a common retirement plan.] 11-20-18
  64. Pensions.  “Politicians Put Populism Over Pensions.”  By Mene Ukueberuwa.  [Anti-Wall Street ire leads some state officials to attack private equity despite its benefits to retirement funds.]  1-30-19
  65. Pensions.  “Retirees’ Security Trumps Other Social Goals.”  By Eugene Scalia.  [A new Labor Department rule reinforces pension funds’ fiduciary duties.]   6-24-20
  66. Pensions.  “Prelude to a State Pension Bailout.”  By   Andrew G. Biggs.    [Covering multiemployer plans is unwise and signals a willingness to rescue failing public funds.]   3-1-21
  67. Pensions.  “These States Lead the Way on Pension Reform.”  By Leonard Gilroy and Steve Gassenberger.  [Arizona, Michigan and Texas are showing how to create resilient systems for government retirees.]   6-19-21
  68. Pensions.  “A Lawsuit to Protect Pensions.”  [Using worker savings to serve climate policy gets a major legal challenge.]   5-24-23

 

 

 

Issue Headlines

Pensions. “Pensions Brace for Lower Returns.” Wall Street Journal, 9-5-15, p. A1.

Pensions.

Central States Fund Proposes 60% Pension Cuts, Treasury Dept  Says “Not Enough”; 407,000 Affected
Date: 5/20/2016 6:17:11 P.M.

https://mishtalk.com/2016/05/20/rejected-central-states-fund-proposes-60-pension-cuts-treasury-dept-says-not-enough-407000-affected/

Pensions. Wall Street Journal 8-26-16, P. C1   <<<<<

“Puerto Rico Pension Mess Comes to Head.”

Campaign Consideration

Talking Points

Related Topics